THE SLOW MUSIC MOVEMENT​
  • Home
  • Music Tips
  • Radio/Playlists
  • Record Label/Licensing
  • Blog
  • Sound Advice
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Music Tips
  • Radio/Playlists
  • Record Label/Licensing
  • Blog
  • Sound Advice
  • About
  • Contact
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

Picture

The Slow Music Movement Blog

​Mostly we put our daily recommendations here for the blog readers among you, although occasionally we go longform.
Reading about music is a bit like looking at pictures of food - not nearly half as much fun as getting involved, so we scribble a brief intro to hopefully whet your appetite but you're better off just hitting play. Not very "slow" I know but there's a lot of music to check these days & hopefully you'll find the recommendations a handy filter.
​Trust your ears, not opinions.

27/2/2022 0 Comments

Bugge Wesseltoft - Be Am (Jazzland)

What Your ears Say & The Cover LOoks Like


What We Say

The music of Bugge Wesseltoft & his Jazzland Recordings label have been a constant in my listening over the last 25 years. Here he hits the Sunday sweetspot with this largely solo piano suite of reflective compositions musing on life's ups & downs, which sound like they come from a man at peace with himself & his place in the world.  

What The Release Notes Say

​In the 25 years since Bugge Wesseltoft founded Jazzland Recordings, he has engaged in numerous group projects and collaborations such as New Conception of Jazz, duos with the likes of Sidsel Endresen, Henning Kraggerud and Henrik Schwarz, one-off projects such as Trialogue, Bugge and Friends, and OKWorld! And of course, the super-trio RYMDEN. However, it is in his solo material that we can glimpse the true soul behind the effervescent and mercurial mind of one of the most influential and important Norwegian musicians of an entire generation. 

On "Be Am", his latest solo album, Wesseltoft has allowed his creative impulses to wander where they may - no preset rules to govern the composition and production, no obligations to (not) use electronics, not even a will to be totally alone. This is pure playing and composition, where the music speaks freely by whatever means it will. 

In the more meditative pieces, there is a sense of both natural calm and imposed calm, the difference between which should be apparent to anyone who has suffered the changes of the COVID lockdown periods - there are times when we naturally experience a mental peace, while there are others when we have to bring ourselves, often with great strength of will, to something approximating it. 

Many of the pieces here have the feeling of being wordless songs - indeed, no words are needed when the notes convey all that is needed on tracks like "Tide" or "State". The arrival of Håkon Kornstad on the track pairing of "Emergence" and "Roads" shifts the mood from one of peace within solitude to peace within company, the latter track being an understated dialogue, a musical soundtrack for watching the world hustling and bustling, or sleeping its way towards a new day. Tracks such as "Messenger", "Green" and "Be Am" throw more angular shapes, musical shadow-play where unexpected progressions shift to moments of gospel uplift before taking unanticipated shifts towards unexpected harmony. With "Life", kalimba accompanied by birdsong loops, carrying us into a piece that takes tentative but exact steps between positions, like tai chi in musical form. "Gonna Be OK", returns to the moods established at the beginning of the album in more optimistic colouring, while "Deeper" transports us across a unusual exploration of the lower reaches of the piano, uncertain, yet familiar, transforming itself with each new chord. "Sunbeams through leaves softly rustling" closes the album with that beautiful Satie-like melodic simplicity that Bugge has made his own. 

The music of "Be Am" carries ghosts of uncertainty, whispers of resignation, and faint echoes of frustration. But throughout there are rays of hope, a warm clear light of peace and tranquility, and growing flames of an unquenchable fire of determination. It is music of, and for, the human soul.
 ​

If You Like That You Might Like This

Check the playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube & Soundcloud
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    OUR MISSION STATEMENT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS

    Lazy Days, Hazy Moments & Dancing to a Slower Groove

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Lazy Days, Hazy Moments & Dancing To a Slower Groove